Dragonkin Abroad
by InkyStake
Summary: Ginny Weasley is punted out of her world by a pissy enchanted wall. Someone should really teach Gryffindors not to see the word 'forbidden' as a challenge. She should never have tried to mess with the Forbidden City.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Harry Potter & Game of Thrones characters and plots aren't mine.

* * *

Ginny Weasley crouched on the peak of a limestone pillar, a letter clutched in her hand and a thoughtful look on her face. Harry Potter was finally marrying, the last of her schoolfriends to do so. The letter was long, rambling and often veered through and into numerous tangents unashamedly. Luna was always an entertaining letter-writer.

For some reason, the ethereal blonde's many flying creatures sooner or later found Ginny's temporary shelters. This letter was borne by a rather put out black pygmy pterosaur. She grinned at the feathered reptilian that was waiting impatiently for a reply. "Have fun finding a way through my wards?"

The creature snorted and eyed her with imperious disdain.

"Hey, I'm pretty good for someone who's not a professional warder! Just ask Bill. Try _his_ wards if you really want a challenge."

A ruffle of feathers and a silent stare were her answer.

"Yeah, yeah," she sighed. "They must really want me there if Luna sent you."

The pterosaur sent her a smug look. He was the only message-carrier that consistently was able to find Ginny.

"Where _did_ Luna find you anyway?" She leaned back and stretched her legs, the mossy ground soft under her. How long had it been since she'd had people to talk to? A few months? There was that Chinese family on the farm she stumbled onto.

She didn't really want to go back to Britain. This was Harry though. She should go back to support him.

Her brow furrowed. But...

She carefully refolded the letter and tucked it into her pocket, where it joined several others like it. "No reply," she told the creature that huffed indignantly at her but didn't swat her with a strong wing like he did when he got fed up that she wasn't giving him return replies. He was used to it by now.

"You're fast, right? If you can beat me through this canyon to the old tree on the cliff, I'll consider sending an actual message." Ginny smirked and leaped off the pillar, unheeding of the mile-high drop. She took a breath and her body changed mid-air, lengthening and growing larger as she fell. She heard the reptilian message carrier screech in outrage but, to her laughing glee, he dived to follow her.

Her wings, more scaled than his, spread out to catch air and beat to create gusts of wind through the canyon. She laughed and it came out more a hissing roar. Dragons flew by magic more than wings but wings were so very useful things. At least she thought so.

Ginny was an excellent flier on a broom. Winged, she was better by magnitudes. The sky called to her and the high winds brought her home.

She hissed at the dark-colored pterosaur, the creature's speed as awe-inspiring as the books said. He hissed back. To her amused surprise, she actually understood that. Very few people knew she retained some memory of parseltongue. Tom was ripped violently from her mind while he was siphoning off her life and magic; the backlash left a number of 'souvenirs'.

She and Harry bonded morbidly over having Riddle's memories in their nightmares. But Harry let his parselmouth skills deteriorate after Hogwarts, only using them when sorely needed. Hers, she cultivated. She often needed the skills while traveling alone in a number of countries after all. And not just for making sure snakes didn't come near her campsites. Parseltongue was also the most intimidating language she knew, and most people would at least hesitate when hearing it. If not, then Charlie had taught her how to curse in Russian.

Parseltongue turned out to be a boon, as her knowledge of it led her to generally understand dragon language as they spoke it, which Charlie laughingly dubbed Dragontongue.

Unfortunately no one could speak it as a human, which was odd because Parseltongue, hello? She supposed people couldn't roar like dragons as easily as they hissed like snakes though.

She put the letter out of her mind. There were many interesting things in the Middle Kingdom.

* * *

Ginny was the youngest of seven children, and the only girl. She was indulged by parent and brother alike, and so grew up confident that the world would cave itself to her whim. Were her character not as it was, she would have grown to resent reality and likely came to a sticky end. Still, it was this near arrogance and supremely adventurous spirit that had her traveling the Silk Road alone and therefore the cause of her eviction from the very world she was born in.

The magical denizens of the Middle Kingdom were very serious about their very Forbidden City and when they said 'forbidden', they meant 'trespass and we'll automatically punt you out of this very dimension'. They were particularly unwelcoming to those that would try to climb their vaunted forbidden walls.

Unfortunately for Ginny, her stay at Hogwarts was rather detrimental to her continued existence in that 'forbidden' had somewhat different connotations. That is to say, the Forbidden Forest near the castle was more accurately named the Forbidden-only-if-you-do-not-have-the-stones-to-enter-or-the-skill-to-not-get-caught Forest. And Ginny was very much a Gryffindor. Her close association with the Boy-who-lived-despite-all-but-throwing-himself-off-a-cliff was another unfortunate event that solidified her view that fortune indeed favoured the bold.

She did know that to some this would seem a failing but she did have, in her impressionable eleventh year of life, the mind of a consummate Slytherin possessing her whose stubbornly clinging vestiges she could use to mitigate any consequences that arose from being too rash of a Gryffindor. It wasn't completely foolproof however, since the Slytherin in question was very much not someone to emulate and she spent most of her Slytherin thinking time largely ignoring the suggestions posited from that part of her brain. So as she was ripped from the wall of the Forbidden City and into the Void in a surprisingly warm cacophony of differently colored, if violent, light and force, she sighed and thought: oops.

Then she transformed into her animagus form to roar flames and defiance. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do in the face of impending death due to excessive recklessness. Unfortunately, all it did was give her a sore throat. Not that she felt it with the Pain shredding through the rest of her.

She blacked out just as the rip in space-time closed.

The Forbidden City's defenses against besieging dragons were formidable as its history was used to any passing massive reptilian amusing themselves with crushing the city like a child toppling over an anthill. Against the flames of even one who thought it was her last living breath, the walls were a bit more than adequate.

Despite that, the outer wall half-melted into the shape of a fiery black comet. The magical emperor was both impressed and mournful. He, in a burst of amused tolerance, let the inadvertent sculpture stand as a monument of the foolishness of even the most powerful intruders and the valence of the imperial city.

Pity about the poor soul that had dared the wards, he thought. There never had been a dragon animagus in the Middle Kingdom since two thousand years ago and he would have been lauded for having one in his court. Still, the little smear on the wall would tell his people that even a dragon-soul and dragonfire could not breach the greatest city in the Middle Kingdom.

Half-way around the world, Luna Lovegood groaned in exasperation as one line of the future snapped indelibly into the present and then strolled flashily by into the past.

Who died from running into a wall? An idiot, that's who. Well, at least her childhood friend wasn't really dead.

She got up to write a note to Harry that Ginny had declined his invitation firmly, very firmly. Maybe she should start researching dimension travel just in case some of her friends decided to follow their wayward redhead?

It could be fun.

She hummed, cheerfully imagining the chaos that could, might, may happen.

* * *

Ginny woke, alive and still draconic, in an unfamiliar, if rather colorful, mountain range. She tried to transform. She remained a dragon. She panicked, ran around a little, and stubbed her claw on a boulder.

The large rock could not be crushed by standing on it so she rolled it to the edge of a cliff and watched it fall to pieces vindictively. Damn giant rocks. Then she tried transforming again. She panicked for a whole day before hunger drove her to at least try and satisfy those demands by swooping down on giant fleeing elk-like animals.

You know it was a bad day when your stomach was more logical than your brain.

The land was strange. And she definitely knew strange when she saw it. She'd flown over half the planet Earth. By now she'd memorized the shape of the continents and all the warm islands and the hidden magical lands that didn't show on non-magical maps. Suffice to say, she was well versed in what her planet's geography looked like when seen on the wing.

This geography was not the same.

She mourned. There was this darling little volcanic island in the ring of fire that she would dearly miss.

She must be in shock, she decided, when that thought popped up. She should be thinking about missing people. No, she decided, almost immediately; her friends and family were hale and hearty and could take care of themselves. Besides, they probably knew she wasn't dead by some paranoid monitoring thing or other. Her mother had tricked her blasted clock out with seriously crazy magic years ago. The island was one of a kind.

Then she snickered. All those bets about her brothers leaving the country to get away from their mother...they couldn't compare to leaving behind an entire planet.

She snickered again, slightly hysterical, until she got a hold of herself. She sighed. It was a little less amusing when her brothers weren't there to gloat over.

She kept above the clouds as best she could, conserving magic and using her dragon-enhanced sight to scope the continent she'd landed on. More and more certain, the lands she saw from above the clouds were not the ones she was used to seeing.

She banked and veered around, the thick clouds she used to hide her form starting to dissipate in the heat of the sun. It was so much easier to use existing cloud cover than make her own.

She should have seriously learned the charms dragon reserves used to hide their skies from muggles, she thought with a grimace. She never did get the hang of those. They tended to backfire rather spectacularly when she tried them, to Charlie's amusement. The cotton-candy cloud incident had put paid to any dreams she had of working in a reserve. Well, she didn't want her whole life to be dragons, though she did spend most of two years helping out in the Romanian reserve before she started traveling.

There were runecharms that would make people think a flying dragon was a bit of interesting but natural sky phenomenon. But first, she needed to be able to change back to get those out of her luggage. Wait, didn't she break that charm-string in Turkey or somewhere between the Mediterranean and China, she groaned as she remembered.

She had to make another one.

It took a week of flights at night and cloud-sneaking in the cooler parts of day to orient herself with the locality. There were few people in the mountains and many animals. There were small towns at the foot of the range but the first really significant settlement of people she came across was a place called Mantarys.

A city.

She snorted to herself. She was spoiled by the massive steel and concrete muggle cities if a major trade metropolis was what she now expected as 'significant'.

She wheeled back to return to the deep inner reaches of the mountain range. Her transformation back to human was coming along nicely but she could do to practice more. She had managed to lose the wings and even though a human-shaped lizard was the extent of what she could do, it was a distinct improvement over not being able to transform at all.

The magic in these lands, whatever they were called, must be different than what she was accustomed to. She hadn't had this difficult an animagus transformation since she was learning how to do it in the first place. She didn't know what the problem was and so just did the blasted exercises again. They helped. Another day or two and she could pass as a regular human, plus get a hot bath with soap and access other supplies stashed in her mokeskin pouch.

The pouch was expensive, what with the many enchantments, but it was definitely worth it. She had half a decade's worth of tossing stuff into the thing. It probably amounted to a full household by now, and that was outside the rather wonderful cabana tent nicked during one of Malfoy's ill-advised attempts to beat them at their own game of guerrilla warfare around the last days before Deadmort was obliterated.

The elk-like animals that roamed the range tasted fine but she was getting rather tired of half-raw, all-charred meat chunks. What she wouldn't give for a good stew.

It was another three days before she could get the bronze scale patterns to disappear from her skin. Even then, her eyes still looked a little inhuman. She considered her reflection in the pool of water. Her pupils were more elongated than normal and there was more gold in the irises than she was used to seeing in her brown eyes.

She shrugged it off. It would do.

More importantly, she had access to her supplies. She took out the book Bill had covertly given her when she met him in Morocco that one time. He'd warned her never to let anyone know she had it. _Strange and Distant Lands,_ written by someone calling himself (or herself) _The Traveler,_ was rare and contained prohibited knowledge.

Of the spells inside, a lot of it was mind magics and more than slightly unethical. Bill was seriously awesome like that. Most of them were designed to be used on the non-magical. If her eldest brother knew there were more than just echoes of Riddle in her head, he probably wouldn't have given it to her. Or maybe he gave it to her because she understood more than most the sanctity of the individual's mind. She did understand that the mind as sacrosanct. She just would have more respect for the idea if she hadn't had to fight in the last civil war.

The bulk of the death and fighting ended with the destruction of Voldemort but his followers were numerous even after the trials. Numerous, moneyed, and with a hold on the Wizengamot. And mad, very mad. Not to mention they had an in with the many werewolves that were raging at the denial of their promised 'kingdom' who were entirely glad to get revenge for a little gold.

It was the aftermath of the Hogwarts battle that haunted her and her age-mates the most. The aftermath, they called it. But it was an extension of the war, only it was not simply flinging spells around as any child could do. It was dirty, filthy, and honorless. It stained souls and broke minds.

So yes, she knew the sanctity of the human mind. But she would learn mind magic if it kept her loved ones safe. If it meant she would survive at the expense of her enemies.

She _had_ told her eldest and most favorite brother, long ago when she was too young and too scared, that she had a tiny Slytherin whispering things in her head. It was him that taught her the basics of Occlumency and the need for meditation and balance. She'd never told him Tom grew a bit more distinct after several encounters with Snakemort during the Troubles. Oh well, just another thing to deal with or subvert.

Then again, Bill was uncommonly perceptive and he likely knew her brain was a little cracked. The book was possibly one of those solve-this-puzzle-to-get-stronger-smarter-sneakier things he kept feeding everyone younger than Percy when they were kids. No wonder Ginny, and probably all three of her immediate elder brothers, had to do a quick bit of talking to get into Gryffindor. Damned Hat.

In any case, she knew he wouldn't give her anything that would hurt her. Much. Bill was a bit cracked too. She couldn't wait to watch what his kids would grow up into, with him and Fleur as parents. It would be entertaining and hopefully full of fireballs.

The Traveler's magics were on the fun side of illegal. Mostly. Ginny liked how the writer wrote even if she didn't respect them; the Traveler was very aware that the words written would best be used immorally and left the hard decisions to the reader, only leaving little witty _bon mots_ of hidden warning interspersed with passages that tried half-heartedly to curb the user's excesses. It was a book with few illusions. No wonder it was deemed dark arts.

Ginny knew dark arts. Hermione once told her, half in jest, that she learned by absorbing things instead of thinking about them. She was someone who had learned the Imperius and its variations by dint of it being used repeatedly on her and most of her friends. Her hands tightened on the pages of the book and she took several deep breaths slowly. The Traveler didn't recommend that particular Unforgivable. She must remember that. Apparently it was _unimaginative_.

She skipped the compulsions to the sections with more utility to her right now.

There was a spell in the Traveler's book she had used just once before, paying a Chinese mage for the knowledge of his language. She ran her eyes down the page, refreshing her memory. It actually was more a method, seeing that it needed three different spells and some knowledge of Legilimency.

She smiled. Legilimency was _very_ useful. Of course she'd learned it. Even to the actual invasive 'impolite' Legilimency techniques that Deadmort used so frequently. She was of the opinion that ripping into so many people's heads contributed to his overall insanity.

She flew out at night and settled down some distance from the city. She could not use disillusionment as a dragon and cloud or mist looked out of place here where the sun scorched the land, so she wasn't taking chances. She could use a good evening stroll anyway.

The city was more akin to the few cities in the wizarding world than the muggle. Larger though, larger and still ever so much more crowded. But no bright electric lights and wire towers, no music blasting at eardrum-bursting levels, no skyscrapers a hundred storeys tall that hurt your eyes with their gleaming facades.

The place smelled though. They didn't have good sewage control and the horses and other draft animals littered the streets with shit. The heat didn't help. Vanishing spells were clearly underrated.

She ducked into an alley, did several quick spells, and pinned the temporarily enchanted cloth to her hood while strolling back onto the thoroughfare. The bit of silk kept the smell at bay while hindering the view of her face. She was now dressed rather like the women in Bill's beloved Egypt, she thought with a smile as she looked around at the tattooed and colorful people.

The sights were wondrous, in this world that was not hers. She was a little surprised that her usual clothes did not stand out that much, given her experiences with non-magical cities. Her robes were a curiosity to some but not worthy of notice since many people wore similar flowing garments in infinite styles and cuts.

She stopped at the first inn she came to that did not have drunk people singing loud songs on the first floor and took a room for the night. The woman looked oddly at the three sickles she paid with and said something she didn't understand. The woman smiled at her confusion and pushed back one of the sickles. Ginny nodded and gestured to the upstairs where she imagined they had rooms.

How was money figured in this city? The inn-keeper's calculating eyes made her wary. Coins in the Gringotts galleon system were carefully weighed and measured for their metals, so they were easily valued in the currencies of other magical nations. She'd learned that apart from Britain, France, and the Netherlands, no magical nation used Gringotts as a bank exclusively but galleons were legal tender in any magical area with a Gringotts branch, which was all of Europe and Russia, with some parts of Africa and the Near East, and the Middle East. The goblins were that well-known for their predictable greed and their absolute commitment to gold.

But here? The refined silver in the Gringotts sickles was probably prized. She'd have to find out how to change some of her galleons. It was too bad the coins couldn't be charmed in any significant manner.

She followed the woman up the stairs and into a clean but bare room, holding only a bed and a table with two chairs. She waited until the woman left to her duties, snuck out and slipped into the next room, the one with the loudly snoring occupant. She did notice that the people in this inn were better dressed than most she'd seen in her infrequent spying on the people nearer the mountain, so it was more likely they had the information she was looking for. She waved her wand at the door, an alarm spell and a locking spell, and cast the bulky figure on the bed into a dreaming sleep. She whispered the necessary incantations over the man's brow, touched her fingers to his temples, and then cast the last part of the spell.

Her fingers dug forcefully into the fat-lined skin that covered his skull, twitching spasmodically as knowledge of the languages the man spoke flooded into her mind. The man was a merchant, a minor one but he regularly traveled most of the southern half of the continent named Essos and spoke all their dialects, so he suited her purposes perfectly

Thirty minutes later, she slid quietly back into her own room, barred the door and charmed it shut, before dropping onto the bed.

Magically learning a language direct from the speaker needed at least one week to settle in the receiving brain. The initial word-to-meaning association was always a bitch. The first 48 hours always came with a headache and the feeling of wool growing inside the skull. And then she needed to hear the language spoken constantly to get a lot of the context and nuance and grammar. It wasn't fool-proof and reading the language was another matter, plus the method grew less and less effective after a person passed thirty years of age - something about human minds, both receiver and source, being less flexible. But it was useful.

She dropped off into a light sleep, wand gripped tightly in her hand.

* * *

Ginny spent a month exploring the city. After nearly being stabbed in broad daylight, she bought light armor to wear under her robes -something she really should already have. She had a dragon-hide coat in her pouch but she thought that would attract too much attention.

She scratched a few runes for defense and temperature control into her new leather armor, something she learned from Bill, who she had told all her dreams of traveling the world to. He'd talked to her a lot of what he learned in Africa and started her on Runes but unlike him, she didn't have an affinity for them. She still listened avidly to his stories and worked all she could at his teachings.

She tried to apply her brother's words here, in this strange world that looked like her own but wasn't. Runes worked well enough, but spells were apparently something that lost power over the many millenia of this place's history. She strapped her enchanted daggers, gifts from George, to her thighs and ran her finger over the dragons carved into the dragontooth hilts.

She explored. She looked and learned and tried to keep the sadness from missing her family at bay.

Also, she despaired that all the bath houses were communal. Private bathing pools in the bath houses were prohibitively expensive. She wouldn't have minded the communal pools but really, some people should be banned from removing their clothes in view of others.

She bought several too-expensive books and tried to connect the written figures with the images and meanings already flooding her brain. It was very slow going. And the maps. Gone was her hope that this was just some small part of her world magically severed from the whole. It was an entire world in itself. Then there were the magics.

The magics in this world were of earth and blood. There was no wizardry here, no magics of sky and air. Ginny wondered why, when witchcraft was prevalent in all the stories and rumors she heard at the markets. She'd always thought witchcraft and wizardry went together.

It was wizardry that brought her here. To this world that was not her world. It was possible that she could never return to her own.

No. She pushed the thought forcefully away.

She would not think that.

There was still magic here. Magic was the impossible. That meant everything can happen. It meant everything was possible.

* * *

Flying was always soothing. Rusty, her animagus form, grinned widely as she corkscrewed through the air under dark skies, wind howling in her ears. There was a long while where she dreamed of flying professionally, maybe the broom races or a Quidditch team. Becoming a dragon animagus stopped that, even if few knew she was an animagus. She didn't think it fair when her magics whispered to her of the air currents and the breezes lofted her on her way and her eyes were sharpened by her soul-animal.

Speaking of soul-animal, something in her woke up and took notice as she was flying toward the mountains she had decided to make her base.

She wheeled abruptly. There was something happening down below.

She mentally moved the clouds apart to let her see clearly. It was years before she'd mastered carving the runecharm that let others see moving clouds and mist when they saw her in dragon form, but oh so useful. It was actually a ward, made using runes carved into lumps of goblin silver.

There was no silver here made using the proprietary methods of goblins and dwarves. So she tried melting a few sickles. She found that there was no breaking the anti-counterfeiting magic on those. She took a week and a half of frustrated cursing to determine that. Then finally, irritated and exhausted, she ripped a seam onto the coin's protections and just force-burned the runes onto them. Her mouth fell open as the configuration was actually absorbed into the coin's protections. Her brow twitched.

"Those miserable, untrusting misers."

Who actually put a whole _entire_ ward on a coin? She didn't even know that was _possible_. She savagely forced the modifications to the rest of the needed sickles. Because the coin shape couldn't be distorted, she wove cradles for each coin from leather ties and looped them into a funky necklace.

At least the goblin craftwork meant that it wouldn't fall off when she was in dragon form. She dropped the charm over her head, then did a run and leap off the nearby cliff face. She let her frustration bleed off in the wind as she rocketed east, simply reveling in the speed and power that came with unassisted flight.

It was nearly night that she swung around and began lazily, tiredly, winging her way back, more content and actually feeling accomplished. That was when her eye caught a flash of white in the red wasteland under her clouds.

There was a group of people below her. She dove lower. Some were on horses, though most were on foot. They were walking across the desert. Who in the world would lead people into this particular desert? Rusty had flown over it once before and even she could feel the heat from miles above it. She eyed the group uncertainly.

Were they fleeing something?

Then she felt the magic again. It was faint but unmistakable. It was blood, it was familiar.

There were dragons there.

Unheeding of secrecy she dived down, ignoring that the illusion necklace stopped working with such blatant violation of people's belief. They would see her through the mists, though only when she was too close for comfort.

She dropped down before the head of the group and peered at the horse-riders leading the column.

The horses shied away violently and made a number of screaming panicky sounds.

Yes, that was actually expected. There were shouts of disbelief and more screams, from people this time. She ignored the part of her that laughed and reveled in the sounds of terror.

 _ **$$-Quiet, I'm not going to eat you.-$$**_ she grumbled. It was a common misconception. More screams sounded and she sighed. Nobody believed her when she said that. It seemed here was no better. She ignored them, staring at the dragons -not even dragons yet but _wyrmlings_.

They didn't look even a month old.

More importantly, they were clinging to a person. She cocked her head to study the wide-eyed girl that was attempting to keep her horse quiescent.

 _ **$$-I wonder where you got those wyrmlings, when this world says dragons don't exist anymore-$$**_ she mused.

Purple eyes widened more and their owner urged her horse forward. The horse surprisingly took a few steps.

Oh? Rusty watched her. What was this, then? A suspicion was born in her brain as the girl firmly guided the white horse nearer to her.

"They are my children," said the girl. "They were born of my blood and the life of my blood."

It was! A speaker?

Rusty hid her glee. _**$$-And who is it that makes such a claim?-$$**_

"I am Daenerys Targaryen. Stormborn, my mother named me. Unburnt, my people call me." The girl lifted her chin. "Who is it that enquires?"

Rusty grinned wide and chuckled. The girl was not a wilting pansy. She ignored the collective flinch from the people before her at the baring of large teeth. She'd cried when all the books said dragons went extinct years before. She could admit that every long flight she took, she was hoping the books were wrong. Take that, honored scholars of whatever great place of learning!

She ignored the girl's question. Even a nickname would have some power over her as a dragon. And this Daenerys Stormborn could understand and maybe speak the Dragontongue. She would not be giving out any name until she had a handle on this world's magic users.

 _ **$$-You say you are the wyrmlings' mother.-$$**_ she said instead. ** _$$-Dragons only awake to dragons. Little humans would burn in the birthing fires.-$$_**

The girl stared at her for a long moment, eyes fierce and with a glint of something that was trying to be strength and mostly succeeding. Oh yes, Rusty liked the girl. "I am born of dragons. We do not fear the flames."

Rusty blinked. Born of dragons. She had read quite a few iterations of that phrase in old books she sought out since she became an animagus.

Rusty shot her sinuous head forward to make sure of the girl's scent beneath the sweat and smell of horses. The silver horse screamed. Well, not just the horse, but it was the most irritating as it was nearest to her ears.

Daenerys Stormborn slipped off her mount to several cries of protest from her people, faltering in her first steps but was soon standing firm, looking up at Rusty.

Rusty chuckled, then lowered her head, nudging the dragonlings clinging to the rough, dusty clothing and rumbling comfortingly as they coughed out shrieks that would someday evolve into roars. Then she breathed heat against the girl's cheek.

Well, what do you know, she thought, examining the smoldering but unburnt skin. It was true. There were no more dragonkin in her world, not since Myrddin died and the Emrys line was lost. The magics of creating dragonkin were sunk with Atlantis and even then, the texts mentioned that the rituals and trials killed more than succeeded. She, as dragon animagus, was probably the closest anyone would get in the present.

The girl's breath hitched and she trembled as Rusty pulled away. "Are...are you taking them away?"

Rusty studied the girl. An arm came to cradle the white dragon. She was shivering not out of fear but anguish and the effort to keep tears in, and also anger and determination. Rusty noticed, for the first time, that the girl was too skinny. The skin and hair could be attributed to the journey, on foot, through a mother-loving desert, but not that kind of gauntness. The wyrmlings looked healthier than she did.

Damnit.

She did think about taking the dragons. It was the best course of action. Dragons were best raised by dragons. Then again, the girl was dragon-born.

Decisions, decisions.

Oh, who was she kidding? Curse her soft heart.

 _ **$$-No.-$$**_

A tear fell from purple eyes and Rusty crooned comfortingly. The three wyrmlings clung closer to the leather of the girl's outfit, sensing her strong emotions.

Rusty eyed them. They had already bonded, she rationalized. She might not have been able to take them away anyway.

 _ **$$-Where do you go, dragonkin?-$$**_ Rusty asked.

The pale-haired girl looked wary, relief fleeing once more. "East and south, great one."

 _ **$$-Will you not turn back, lest you die in this desert?-$$**_

The girl's stance firmed. "There is nothing left to us there. What lies before may be uncertain but it is better than the surety of what is behind. I will not turn back."

 _ **$$-If your people die in this wasteland?-$$**_

"I will save as many as I can and mourn those that I cannot. If they die, then they would do so knowing that their last steps were pointed toward freedom and a life better than what they left behind."

Rusty laughed. She couldn't help it. The nearest horses and people reared back at the grumble-hiss-roar of her laughter. Daenerys was frowning, trying not to glare at the laughing dragon. It was adorable.

 _ **$$-You are young. But I suppose you'll grow out of it. Very well. I'll not take the wyrmlings. We will speak again, little dragonkin.-$$**_

Daenerys Targaryen had spirit. She was also reckless and had the potential to be powerful. She was probably more mature than Ginny, come to think of it. It was only because dragontongue was somewhat limited and there were no words for various human concepts that Rusty sounded so different when she spoke. Normally she had fun being dramatic -all damned dragons she met were _drama queens_ \- but it really wasn't the time. Because, seriously, there were dragons in this world after all!

It was going to be fun raising them. All four of them.

She rocketed west to her designated headquarters, laughing gleefully.

* * *

Ginny leaned against a tree in her preferred hideout. It was near the place she woke in, the caldera of a volcano long dead, the rich soil fresh with greenery. The entire place felt comfortable to her; the fires of the volcano slumbering deep under the surface were soothing. The high cliffs that protected the place were a boon to her animagus form, which wasn't so graceful on land as it was in the air. She'd set up her tent under a large overhang, confident that no one would be able to find it. She had spellwards up only as a precaution.

It was a good thing Charlie had agreed to her living in Romania with him for a while. He talked so much about work that Ginny learned without meaning to, even before she started helping with his work. Then she got her animagus form and the dragon handlers were ecstatic and awed. She and they learned a lot more about the dragons in the reserve. It was exciting, actually working with dragons rather than simply hearing what they were like. She was contributing, creating something worthwhile with work that she did with her own hands and head. It got interesting enough that she was considering following in Charlie's footsteps.

Then Luna showed up and invited her to travel, see new lands and new dragons. With her parselmouth abilities, Luna pointed out, she could write books about various reptilian creatures, not just dragons. Charlie and Luna were her salvation; they gave her something to live for.

Now they weren't here, but the girl and her dragons were. It would be interesting to see the differences between her home's dragons and this world's.

To think, there was someone who actually understood the language of dragons here! She stretched, feeling a smile creep over her lips.

It had been a week since then. She did want to find the girl again but there were a lot of things she needed to do first before gallivanting around the world. She did that once, now look where it led her.

More immediately, she was running out of cash.

Predictably, the Traveler had a whole chapter dedicated to the time-worn practice of counterfeiting. A lot of it was how to conjure or transfigure muggle money, exchange it for real tender, then re-exchange the genuine cash at the magical banks for magical money. Of course, the conjured stuff disappears and the transfigured things revert but who cares, they're only muggles after all.

Ginny rolled her eyes at the book.

Still, the Traveler espoused those tricks for short-term only and recommended a duplication spell he himself pioneered, one more enduring than the well-known duplication charm Geminio, for long-term needs. The duplicated item could last more than a month but less than six, in which case the muggles would notice the wearing down of the coins and either seek replacements at their banks or seek satisfaction for fraud. By then the wizard would be long gone. That was a great advantage, despite the fact that the duplication had 20% chance of coming out imperfect.

She took out one of the local gold coins and started practicing. After she found out that the people in Mantarys kept slaves and it was a culture so enduring in the area that the entire body of water to the east was called Slaver's Bay, she really didn't have any qualms at cheating the elite assholes that populated the Essosi cities.

She hadn't needed to actually cheat people before now, however. A single galleon was exchanged for at least ten Mantarys gold coins. Apparently, the dragon relief on the back was significant and rare. Which was odd, since the Westerosi lands had dragons on their coins too. She knew they thought they were buying Valyrian coins but she wasn't going to rain on their excitement. Besides, one of them called her a magnificently brainless fool for selling them so cheaply. He didn't think she heard of course. Did they think she was deaf?

Also, books were expensive, as there weren't very many scholars and most wrote by hand. There was also the fact that most of the scholars kept the knowledge they gained within their conclaves or families. Histories and travelogues were generally what the scholars printed or copied, and since they controlled the publishing, they had a say in the literature people read. Poetry and plays were also popular with the masses but most people didn't publish because, for one, the costs of reproducing the work generally overwhelmed the profit from it unless the play actually made scads of money on the stage.

Published authors were backed by scholars, were rich, or had a patron. Many only got their work copied just for themselves and their friends, making limited reproductions. A lot of knowledge languished in private libraries and collections. The scholarly guilds, where a lot of research lay, only opened their collections to students who had taken various oaths of membership and loyalty and such.

Being a witch, she didn't really want to swear herself indelibly into the service of ideals she would not agree with.

But she needed more books now. She didn't think books on dragons to be so scarce though. The really interesting ones were probably kept by the descendants of Valyria. Or at least, the descendants of those who had successfully pillaged after the fall of Valyria. Valyria was a ruin and had been for centuries. She flew over it once and couldn't get far for the poisonous smoke still rising from the land.

She knew a lot about dragons of her world. But even so small, she could see the differences between herself and the dragonlings.

She closed the Traveler's book and took out parchment. Why did all the people she know make lists? Hermione, George, Luna -it was a contagious conspiracy. Possibly with gargling fwumpers or the like.

First, hire a man of business, possibly someone who could help her undermine the slaver assholes in Mantarys more.

If she was to live in this world, she needed some sort of income. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't someone to run a business -she'd helped out with the Wheezes for a single frustrating summer, so she would know. Besides, you couldn't be the darling sister of multiple older brothers without learning how to delegate.

She scribbled ideas down quickly. She didn't spend three months with George not to learn anything. She paused. Pirates? She reached for a handwritten journal from under a haphazard pile of books. There was a lengthy mention of the Basilisk Isles south of Slaver's Bay in there somewhere. Mostly rants and curses but still.

She read the pages again. The Isles sounded like it was filled with people nobody would miss. She smirked. There were a few _fun_ plans that could make use of that fact, off the top of her head. But not now, she sighed mournfully while putting the book away.

There was business to be done.

Now where to find a suitable patsy?

She transformed into Rusty, having learned that apparation was impossible here after falling on her bum multiple times while attempting it.

An hour later, she blinked at the same minor merchant from whose mind she'd copied several languages. She stared at him, surprised. Then asked of the world: "You're kidding me, right?"

What were the odds?

Confusion creased his brows slightly, not understanding the English but getting the tone. "Have I said something to offend, m'lady?"

"I'm not a lady, first of all," she muttered, glaring. " _Stupefy._ "

He slumped against the high-backed chair. She reached across the table and lifted an eyelid. Legilimency, like many other magics, needed a symbolic opening to work with. "Legilimens."

She shuddered when her directed Legilimency stopped and she reviewed the mass of memories that were now in her head. She'd have to do a purge-and-purify later. She thought he'd been a lecher, not a procurer. Now she knew why a lot of the vocabulary from his brain dealt with pleasure-houses.

Two days later, she was the silent owner of a small but well-established business house that suddenly, oh fortune, oh compassionate gods, had an influx of investment that was accompanied by, interestingly, an abrupt attack of morals.

* * *

Daenerys Targaryen, apparent last of that great house, considered the sky from a padded seat outside her tent. She was searching once more for something that would mean that day was not a dream. Rhaegal butted his head against her shoulder. She smiled and ran a finger over his green scales. Of course it was not a dream. Her dragons, her children, were proof enough. And yet, she felt earlier that the great bronze and red dragon that _spoke_ with her so casually would appear and it did not. She felt only a small disappointment, she convinced herself.

The great dragon, it was terrifying. But warm, so warm. She hadn't thought she'd been cold until the dragon appeared. They were in the Red Waste after all.

Perhaps it _was_ a dream, a vision of her family long gone, offering her a warmth she had little known. A dream brought on by the desert heat. She glanced at her khalasar; they gossiped about the same dream. Was it possible for a hundred people to see the same mirage at the same time?

A woman stumbled and a wooden bowl, empty, dropped out of her hands. Dany stood to take up the dropped item that rolled near her, coming out of her musings.

She shouldn't be dwelling on dragons that may or may not be. Not when those who followed her were in need. Certain of her _khalasar_ had already succumbed to the desert, two were old and the others gravely wounded in battle. Their supplies dwindled to nothingness and Doreah...

She swallowed the thick feeling of grief that swelled her throat. Not even two months and she had lost another of those dear to her.

Some part of her wished they had not followed her, for then they would not have died. Another part chided her, for they had reasons for following her as well. It was no matter; they will go on. For her, for them, there was nothing waiting in the place they left behind.

This is the burden of one who leads, she repeated the words from a book of her childhood. This is the burden of a dragon.

Or it is simply, argued yet another part of her, that you do not want to be alone when you had finally known what it is like to love. She closed her eyes, imagining the feeling of arms around her, warmth around her. She ached for it.

Her three dragons shrieked in the night. A sharp wind blew against her. She snapped open her eyes and whirled, facing the feel of _something_ appearing nearby.

 _ **$$-Maybe I should have come earlier, dragonkin.-$$**_

Her eyes widened and her breath caught. At the camp boundaries, the bronze and red dragon curled comfortably, as if it had been there all along. She glanced at her khalasar. Ser Jorah and her _kos_ were on their feet and had their weapons out. All three of her dragons huddled into her.

This was no dream, no deceiving mirage.

"I expected you earlier." She winced inwardly but the dragon didn't appear to take offense. She motioned for her men to stand back. "Did you pass above us?"

The dragon looked pleased. _**$$-You noticed me?-$$**_

"A strange feeling." An anticipation that was disappointed.

The dragon snapped at something near his front claws and tossed it nearer to the fire. They all stared. It was a large bull, well-fed and fattened. Two cows of similar girth followed after it. Drogon eyed them with interest. She curled her hand around him.

"Thank you for the provision, great one."

 _ **$$-It was very difficult. I nearly had my nose gored by fat landgrubbers.-$$**_

Daenerys could not help a smile at the exaggerated complaining. This was a very strange dragon. Certainly not like the stories said dragons were supposed to be. Then again, the stories didn't say anything about dragons that could talk.

"You are a great and terrible dragon, to have triumphed over such adversaries so completely," she affirmed with a serious nod and the large red, gleaming in firelight, sounded a series of hisses that she understood to be laughter. Her heart lightened a little. "May we come closer?"

The dragon did not object so she stepped to the large claws and looked up. Ser Jorah made a sound of protest. She glanced at him. "It seems our supplies are not so dire, ser." He looked both awed and disapproving. But he motioned for others to take the meat.

She turned back to the dragon watching her with golden eyes and after a hesitation, put out her hand. It readily lowered its head to take in her scent, then allowed her to touch its eye-catching scaly hide. Rhaegal, Viserion, and Drogon took that as permission to introduce themselves and they tumbled from their perches on her into the large dragon's forelegs. She scratched gently at the delicate scales on the dragon's snout. "You did not bring your rider?"

 _ **$$-I have none. None may ride me.-$$**_

The words were firm and growling. Daenerys took her hand away, cautious.

The dragon butted its head against her hand, much like Rhaegal earlier. It was...adorable. She resumed her ministrations, wonder once more suffusing her.

 _ **$$-I've taken people on flights before. I have not taken a Rider.-$$**_

Daenerys nodded. The distinction was clear. "You have come to see my children, I believe."

The dragon turned its head to eye her. _**$$-They appear to fare well, that is good. Would that you do the same, little dragonkin.-$$**_

Dany looked surprised at the sentiment, then smiled at the large dragon. "I fare well enough, great one." She gestured to the small dragons gamboling around the red-bronze's claws. "These are Viserion and Rhaegal. The one climbing you is Drogon. Might I know the name of our savior?"

The dragon smiled, baring teeth, yet the last Targaryen didn't feel it was threatening. More an amusement. _**$$-I am Rusty. Hardly a savior.-$$**_

"Rusty."

 _ **$$-A name with many great deeds of Marauding behind it.-$$**_ The dragon said, smirking in apparent satisfaction.

There was something in the tone that made Daenerys feel that they were not the kind of deeds that would be sung in lays like the stories of her ancestor's Balerion. And the way the word 'marauding' was noted, spoke of a meaning she did not understand. She would not be surprised if the said marauding wasn't the same meaning as the word she knew. Yet this served to make her relax around the great dragon. That and the sight of it gently using a claw to play with a mischievous Viserion and a wing to make sure an adventurous Drogon did not fall off its body.

"You must tell us one day." She watched her children play. "I would ask; I have not heard them speak..." She was fully aware could not demand answers of the great red but it was something she wondered about.

 _ **$$-They are too young. In a few moon's time, their minds will mature. They might yet understand and talk.-$$**_

"I will look forward to the time," she could not stop the smile, and she bit her lip that she wouldn't look like a fool. "Will you be joining us?"

The dragon eyed her with a golden stare, as if grinning at her daring. _**$$-You have some bond with the wyrmlings, dragonkin. I would not interfere.-$$**_

She felt relief. She had still thought that the dragon would take her children away from her, despite having said differently when they first met. There was so many things she did not know about dragons. She frowned at its next words.

 _ **$$-I will be sending someone, if I cannot send myself.-$$**_

There was a laughing tone to the rumbling, hissing words that Dany didn't understand. She shook her confusion off. The dragon's humor was odd. "Another dragon?"

 _ **$$-I have not met another dragon in this world, little one. Not until now. We alone, of dragonborn, roam these lands.-$$**_

Daenerys lifted her gaze meet the dragon's, steady and firm. She would speak with the dragon's herald. But there were some things she felt she should make clear. "I am their mother. I birthed them in fire and blood. I will suffer none to take them from me."

 _ **$$-Yes.-$$**_ To her surprise, golden eyes studied her, fierce and inhuman and pleased. _**$$-You will be a Rider yet.-$$**_

 _ **The End**_

* * *

Extra Scenes:

Rusty had surreptitiously scanned Rhaegal's mind, the only one of the three that was content to be still. There was an interesting mass of inherited memories that would likely come in to play as their minds matured that mostly dealt with an understanding of human language, likely Valyrian. The old dragonlords would have bred the language into them magically, if they wanted an easy understanding with their dragons. The little ones didn't speak Dragontongue but there was the instinct to learn and understand. She didn't think the dragonlords knew that their dragons could speak, even if they understood how intelligent their chosen mounts were. So when they magicked the eggs, they replaced inherited memories of Dragontongue with High Valyrian. They must really have mixed their blood with dragons though, if their descendants understood the language of dragons automatically.

But if the dragonlords neglected dragon language, then how did they communicate? She sighed, her suspicions dire. She'd thought the Valyrians kept their dragons speaking a secret as all the books referred to the dragons as their 'mounts'. Anger burned in her at the thought of over five millenia, -five millenia! -of dragons enslaved and kept from their own natural heritage. She took a deep breath to calm the roiling burn in her. She didn't need a mirror to know that her eyes were golden and her pupils a vertical slit.

It was no matter, she insisted to herself, forcing calm into her anger. Not now. Daenerys of House Targaryen, hatcher of dragonlings, didn't seem to have those prejudices. And as the caretaker of the only three dragons in the world, it was her that would write a new history of Dragon Riders.

She had looked into House Targaryen. A royal house, to her surprise, for the last several hundred years. An overthrown royal house and Daenerys was the last of them.

She almost retracted her offer to teach and simply spirited the wyrmlings away to a distant unknown place. A person with those eyes, with that determination, and that heritage – she could burn the world with her dragons. Those with destiny on their shoulders rarely led peaceful lives unless they took that peace with blood and suffering.

But bonds were sacred among Riders. And the little ones had formed theirs _at birth_. That almost never happened, as clutches hatched in rabidly guarded nests, only the one who laid them near. Mother of dragons, indeed. Bonds between dragons and Riders were deep and lifelong, for many it was more prominent than a marriage bond. She didn't doubt that the last Targaryen had formed a bond with the three, not when she had so fiercely declared herself their mother and so fondly called them her children.

All four of them the last of their kind, how could they not bond?

She dropped her face into a pillow and groaned.

Damn her, she could not break what was likely the only thing giving purpose to a lost, lonely child.

She frowned into the pillow as a small voice made itself known. Who are you trying to fool, Weasley? You found something familiar, something that made you feel less alone in this world, something to focus on. Are you saying you are thinking of letting it lie?

She flopped around on her bed, her soft, comfy bed that wasn't made of rushes or stones or whatever they used in Essosi inns.

Fine. Very well. Whatever. She'll teach Daenerys Targaryen as best she can. It was the only thing she could do now. Well, there were other things she could do, actually. But most of those were tantamount to killing the girl and that didn't sit well with her.

She picked up the book on Essosi history, written in High Valyrian, and prepared for the reading to twist her brain. She'd only taken the language when she became owner of her own trading house because apparently, a decent understanding of it was needed to be accepted in the more elite circles and many of the wealthy merchants affected its use. She'd not learned to read it yet.

And oh god, did she really need to learn how to ride a horse? Where were the hippogriffs in this world? At least flying astride didn't hurt so much as cantering on solid ground.

* * *

Rusty soared above the clouds, feeling the now familiar sense of _dragon-kin-mine_ that led the khalasar below.

If the dragonkin kept to her heading, she'd be coming on a ruined city, she determined. It was abandoned and left to rot and Rusty could faintly feel the chill from the mass of death that happened there, even from high up. Most of the cities in the center of Essos had been sacked and abandoned by the Dothraki that now roamed the endless expanse of waving tallgrass infesting the central regions of the continent.

Cursed cities.

She winged away, mindful of the fact that the little dragonkin could sense her in dragon form. It would take a few days yet for the khalasar to get to the city.

It would not take Ginny that long to reach there as a human. Even without apparation, there were other methods of fast travel for a witch. She stared at the city. It brought up memories she would rather not revisit, but she walked toward the dead white walls anyway.

Unfortunately, she didn't know how to exorcise them, the ghostly ones who walked the streets unheeded, unknowing, lamenting. She didn't even know their gods.

She could only sing a song of sleep that Professor Sinestra once taught her, huddling as they were in the horror that was once the muggleborn camps. It was good for at least pacifying restless spirits, its stanzas speaking of loss and love and those that wait in the afterlife.

She walked around the city, singing, before entering its streets with some reluctance. Her song rose and fell, repeated multiple times. She didn't dare enter the houses. She walked the streets for hours and hours from one side of the city to another, her throat grew hoarse and the sun fell. She took a swig of water and kept walking.

It took two days for the dragonkin and her people to reach the city after she started.

* * *

The sun-bleached walls sent a chill up the spines of several of the khalasar. But it was the only source of shade they had been offered in days, so they rode onward.

Then two wagons came into view, their oxen still harnessed. As the wagons had taken prime shade on the outer walls, Dany led them toward it.

One of the khalasar sought to climb into one in search of supplies but was summarily ejected, flung through air. The khalasar stopped.

"Sorcery," muttered one of the bloodriders in disgust.

"Where is the owner?" Dany wondered.

"Khaleesi, do you hear?" Jhiqui leaned in.

She glanced at the handmaiden and cocked an ear. Sure enough, from inside the city whose ruins jutted up from sand like bleached bone, there was the sound of a voice.

"They are singing."

"I..." Jhiqui looked hesitant. "It feels like someone is trying to lift the curse on the city."

"Curse?"

"Spirits here cry out for blood and vengeance, khaleesi. They are being sung to rest. We should not enter."

"We will not die of ghosts or minstrels." Dany said firmly. She dismounted and entered the city, determined to put an end to the nonsense. "Ser, set camp. We will stay here for a time."

Dany walked through the abandoned city and could see why it was called cursed. But she pushed the thought away. A dragon had no fear. She followed the sound of the voice, softly crooning and yet reverberating off the stones.

It was a woman. Dany halted in surprise, and stumbled slightly. She did not realize her steps had become so heavy until she stopped in the presence of the singer. The song was more potent here, though the singer was barely doing more than humming now. Weight she did not realize she'd acquired upon entering the ruins lightened. Words she had been planning to speak halted in her throat. She heard a gasp behind her as her handmaidens caught up.

The woman stopped singing and turned to them, a hand lifting to convey a waterskin to a parched mouth. Golden eyes studied them from under strands of burnished fiery hair. Water-wet lips, red and glistening, smiled at them.

"Greetings, dragonkin."

* * *

 **AN.** I wrote this a year ago, having been sucked in by Jon Snow x The Gamer fics, haha. It wasn't posted then as there were several iterations of the same idea mucking about my head. Those are still in my files and have more HP characters in Westeros. This one is the most 'complete' and unfragmented. The mood in the extra scenes is because they were written long after the rest, and part of what was supposed to be a longer story.

Thanks for your reviews, there is likely to be no sequel.


	2. Chapter Omake

OMAKE: All the bridges are falling down

* * *

Daenerys lifted a brow as she passed the inner arena generally used as her dragon's lair. The song came quite clearly from the sunning rocks installed all over the open space. **_$$-...gold and silver, gold and silver! Build it up with gold and silver, my fair lady.-$$_**

Ser Jorah stopped with her and looked out the window to see the odd girl sitting on the rocks as she was wont to do every late afternoon until dinner. One of Daenerys' _kos_ was watching her warily. "What's she doing now?"

Daenerys listened for a moment. "Teaching a song I believe."

"Oh?" Ser Jorah listened a moment more, catching a rhythm in the strange, intimidating hissing. Singing dragons. Unbelievable.

 ** _$$-It doesn't matter how you build, how you build, how you build! It doesn't matter how you build, my fair lady. We'll burn it down with dragonflame, dragonflame, dragonflame! We'll burn it down with dragonflame, my fair lady!-$$_**

"Very catchy," the would-be-queen commented with a strange smile on her lips as she neared the pile of boulders that had by silent agreement become the place she and the odd red-headed scholar met each day.

* * *

 **AN.** I couldn't resist.

* * *

OMAKE: Ladies of Basilisk Isles

* * *

Luna looked up from a book of creatures she was intently studying. "Ginny, do you remember those giant lizards whose population you insisted on decimating?"

"What about them."

"Apparently they're called basilisks."

Ginny stared at her friend who was perpetually half-mired in unseen worlds. Then she smirked. "I can now better understand the odd urge to wipe them off the planet."

Luna looked at her reproachfully. "You will not make a species extinct just because they are labelled basilisks."

Her voice was firm and Ginny sighed. "Fine. That doesn't mean we have to stop hunting them."

"Oh, of course not, that was fun."

"Good." Ginny's smile was all teeth. "They tasted delicious."

* * *

OMAKE: Westeros Woes

* * *

"Why did we even come here?" Ginny complained. "It's smelly, it's medieval, it's entirely run by purebloods, and it's too much like England for my taste. At least in Essos, I could pretend to be having a vacation in exotic and murderous places."

Luna smiled dreamily. "The masters of knowledge here are known for their ravens."

Ginny took a moment to realize what Luna was getting at, then laughed gleefully. "And we're taking over, right?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Really? Are you telling me that _you_ are going to let their shoddy research slide? They don't even have a newspaper!"

"Their research habits are understandable."

"Come on, Lu! Over ten thousand years of civilization and they're still medieval! You're going to at least introduce a printing press, right?"


	3. Dragonkin Abroad AU: Dragons of Mereen

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire. I would like to own a dragon however. Is that possible?

* * *

AN: This isn't a continuation but an AU of Dragonkin Abroad. In this one, Ginny came out of warp in Sothoryos and led a minor rebellion against the pirates and slavers of Basilisk Isles. She may or may not have hidden an island (or two) from them. She's more interested in exploration than anything else so yeah she didn't listen to rumors of dragons because she was so disappointed by the basilisks.

It really isn't different enough from DA to be its own story. It's just another take on how DragonAnimagus!Ginny meets the Mother of Dragons.

* * *

 **oo00~00oo**

Ginny Weasley stared incredulously as a dragon -a bloody dragon!- dropped in front of her, like its entire bloody species wasn't extinct in this world, and roared incoherently.

Oh great, a _dumb_ dragon. At the periphery of her sight she noticed people in the street scrambling away and a few people hanging out of windows to gawk.

She ignored them and narrowed her eyes on the black dragon in front of her. He was young, likely not even a year old.

 _$$-That's pathetic. And you call yourself a dragon? With that embarrassment of an introduction, you might as well be a dumb wingless beast! If your ancestors ever heard that inarticulate roaring, they'd roll violently in their ashy, smoking graves so much that if you ever set foot in Valyria, the whole continent will feel the tremors!-$$_

The dragon had hunched over in surprise that she hadn't run but his head tilted, looking at her curiously and not even in shame. She threw her arms up.

 _$$-You! What the hell, you're not even listening, are you?!-$$_

A hand clamped tight over her wrist. Ginny whirled, glaring into the fierce purple eyes of the person who'd unceremoniously entered her personal space. _$$-Who in the world are you?-$$_

"Do not speak to Drogon in that manner."

 _$$-Again, who in hells are you?-$$_

 **$$-...mother...-$$** the dragon, Drogon apparently, -whoever thought that was a good name?- rumbled uncertainly.

The purple-eyed woman gasped, staring.

Ginny closed her mouth before her jaw could drop any further. But she couldn't help the words that spilled out of her mouth.

"You're his _mother_?!" She met the dark dragon's eyes, incredulous. _$$-She's your mother?!-$$_

The hand on her wrist tightened painfully. She paused, grimacing. She _was_ out of line. Bonds between dragons and their Riders were deep and personal and often made both parties quick to avenge slights against their partners. She opened her mouth to apologize when she saw the sudden longing look in draconic eyes.

What?

 _$$-Winged One, do you...understand what I'm saying?-$$_

The dragon crooned wordlessly and she stood there, shocked. He didn't. He didn't know it.

 _$$-I don't understand. The dragon language is not that much different from Parseltongue.-$$_

The hand still clasping her wrist tightened once more. "We should speak elsewhere." The woman's lips were firmly pressed together.

Ginny just nodded, stunned. She watched the woman tell Drogon, in human language, to return to where ever they laired. How can a dragon not know how to speak? The one word he did say meant dragontongue in this world was much the same and he did have the ability to speak. She shook her head but the mystery would not leave her.

She barely noticed when a grey-grizzled knight fell into step with her, following the woman who the dragon declared his mother. _$$-This doesn't make sense-$$_

"Speak the words of men, witch."

"Sorry. Though I am human, and so all words I speak are human," she mused, thinking of something Hermione said once. "That beings other than human know the same words is irrelevant to the origin of the language. Do you know that there are legends that all mortal beings once spoke one language, the language of the gods?"

"What gods do you serve then?"

"I'm not particularly religious." The man looked sceptical. Ginny shrugged. "Ugh, if you really want an answer, then my ancestors served the earth and trees."

"You're from Westeros? You follow the Old Gods?" The surprise in his voice was evident.

"I've not set foot in Westeros yet. I just travel. Maybe next summer." She looked at the older man. "Ginevra Weasley, by the way. Who are you?"

The man looked amused. "Ser Barristan Selmy. You have kin in Westeros?"

"No. All my family are not in this world." She looked around, now just noticing the opulent surroundings they'd been walking into. "Where are we, exactly?"

"These are Her Grace's private chambers."

"And Her Grace is?"

He motioned her forward, to the woman looking at her with a piercing purple gaze, now sitting on something like a throne. "Her Grace Daenerys of House Targaryen, Ruler of Mereen. I present Ginevra Weasley."

"Ah," she said in realization. "Crap."

She thought the man chuckled but she was busy wondering how to greet a queen. A memory of Fred and George came to her, and she gave in to a moment of whimsy, dramatically swept her cloak to the back with her left hand while her left leg moved behind the right and bowed from the waist, her right hand moving in a graceful flourish before her.

Wait, women were supposed to curtsey, right? And was she supposed to say something? Druids and damnation. She straightened, waiting for verdict.

"You can speak to dragons."

Well, right to business then. At least this queen wasn't the off with your head kind. In hindsight, copying her prankster brothers in this instance wasn't ideal.

"Uh, more like I can speak to snakes," she clarified. "The Tongue is somewhat similar between a number of reptilian species. Your Grace." She could only understand dragon because of her animagus actually. Though parseltongue had similar rootwords, the dialect was different.

"This language can be learned?"

"Barring magical acquisition, the ability to speak and understand it is inborn and passed down in families. Those who have it speak it or know it instinctively. Though I suppose that with enough exposure, some of it could be learned." Dragons had more body expression than snakes.

"And I?"

Ginny glanced around. They were alone but for the old knight and two other women. She _did_ notice that the woman had responded to her speaking Parseltongue. "There are stories of sorcerers of old that took qualities of their chosen animals into themselves, gaining prized traits. My guess would be that your ancestors found out how magically infuse the understanding of the language into their bloodline."

"This is common knowledge?"

"No. At least I don't think so," she frowned. In her world, it wasn't common knowledge. She hadn't known until she uncovered a diary in the Black library that enumerated theories about family magics and blood gifts. "If there aren't any records of people suddenly taking on animal characteristics in the last several thousand years, then its likely all knowledge of the method is lost. It is known that magical bloodtraits can be passed to descendants though."

"You say it is instinctive. Yet my dragons have not spoken such before now. None of the histories say they have the ability to speak."

Ginny was perplexed. " _None_ of the histories?" Then she remembered Charlie's lessons and shook her head. She'd been thinking like Hermione. Not everything was in books. "On second thought, that's not so surprising. Dragonriders are a secretive lot. My brother said most dragon knowledge was protected by oral traditions and spellwork."

The queen's hidden hope waned at Ginny's words. "I am told my family had great affinity with dragons."

Ginny knew that Valyria fell and most of their dragons with them. "Nothing in your family books? Stories from elder family members?"

The air in the throneroom -a private throneroom, by Merlin- cooled into a wistful melancholy. The queen's voice was tight. "I am the last of my family."

Oops. Ginny metaphorically took a step back. "I'm sorry. I didn't know." She took a deep breath. "As for why the...wait, you have more than one dragon?"

"How can you not know?" asked one of the two women lounging on a settee at the side after a disbelieving silence. "The dragons have been the talk of the Free Cities for months."

"That's because I _wasn't_ in the Free Cities." Or the continent, for that matter.

"What rock were you under?"

"It wasn't a _rock_ ," she said a trifle indignantly. Rocks would have been preferable. "I've been surrounded by poisonous trees. You know, people said Sothoryos was out to get you. I didn't believe them until I saw the actual trees drink my blood. Who knew those things were actually carnivorous?"

"What would bring you there, of all places?"

"I wanted to see if I could speak to a basilisk. It was very underwhelming." They were giant lizards with poisonous fangs, nothing like a snake with eyes of death. They moved slower too -she was somewhat disappointed as they couldn't even chase her properly.

"You saw a basilisk? What was it like?"

She grinned at the excitement in the woman's voice and reached for her pack. There was a sharp ringing sound and a sword moved into her vision. She stilled. "I'm just reaching for my journal. It's in the bag at my right side, under the cloak."

"Move slowly."

She brought out the large leather-bound journal, patterned after Luna Lovegood's personal research and travel book, riffled through it to the appropriate page and offered it slowly to the queen's handmaidens. "Please be careful with it."

The sword disappeared.

"Right. Queen. Touchy guards," she muttered to herself. Beside her, Ser Barristan sighed at the words as he sheathed his blade.

She looked at the queen again, considering. "I noticed that your Drogon understood your words. Did you teach him the language, Your Grace?"

"I commanded him as I would my men."

Er, right. Wasn't he her son? "He learned on his own?" That was odd. "Dragons don't care to learn human languages," she said thoughtfully. Even in the dragon reserves, Legilimency was often used to offer and receive sense impressions, emotions, or images and not words.

"Perhaps my ancient ancestor, as your theory says, gifted his dragons with the human tongue as well."

"They would need to have been a Dragon Rider." Or dragon-souled, she thought to herself.

"I am the blood of the dragon, the last of the dragonlords of Valyria." There was an odd tone to the declaration, a thoughtful air, a question long sought after and yet still unanswered.

It was the same air Harry had during their schooldays, whenever he said, "I'm a Potter." As if he didn't quite know what that meant but he was going to be it anyway because it plugged a hole somewhere in his soul.

In that moment, Ginny realized the queen was young. In her teens, certainly. She'd been calling the young ruler a woman but she now doubted the purple-eyed royal was past the age of majority.

Purple eyes swept up to hers and she stilled once more, those eyes more arresting than sharp steel. Those eyes. No, whatever her age, this ruler was most definitely not a child.

"You will teach my dragons this language. Do you accept this charge, Ginevra Weasley?"

Ginny's lips quirked up unnoticeably. "...I do, Your Grace."

She wondered what would happen if she refused. Not that she was going to, because _dragons_. Not so extinct after all, she thought in glee. "Mind you, it might not take." It probably would but covering bases this early was prudent.

"Even then, the possibility exists. This is a service I will richly reward."

"I don't particularly need anything right now," she said absently, mind already running over how to _teach_ dragons how to talk.

"No?"

She realized she might have offended. "I live on a ship," she explained quickly. "As long as we're fed, watered, and occasionally dry, there's no call for much more."

The queen nodded. "What is your ship's name? We'll provision it, if nothing else."

Ginny grinned. "Then I'll happily accept, your Grace. We just put in last night. The docks at Yunkai were rather crowded. It's the _Humdinger_. Fastest ship in these waters."

Ser Barristan Selmy lifted his brows. "The ship with yellow sails."

"You've heard of it?" Ginny was pleased. She liked her ship and was proud to name it for Luna, who had sparked her love of traveling.

"I heard it looked like a corsair."

She laughed impishly. "It is. I got it off the Basilisk Isles."

"And the crew?"

"Free men and none shall say differently."

The knight raised his brows at her but nodded. Well, he'd see the truth if he went anyway. She was surprised he hadn't mentioned the red-bronze stylized quill feather that decorated the mainsail. She delighted in telling people it was a griffin feather. She didn't blame the old knight though; the yellow was eye-catching. She'd conceived the entire thing on a whim and the captain of the ship had actually gotten it made. Considering they were aching for supplies and running from pirates at the time, she'd been very impressed.

She rocked back on her heels as their questions tapered off. "So," she drew out the word. "can I see the dragons now?"

* * *

OMAKE: It's all just smoke and mirrors! Really!

The great red-bronze dragon landed at the peak of the great pyramid, roaring in triumph as the enemy burned below. Then a claw touched something hanging off the dragon's neck and a great flash of light and smoke enveloped the great winged beast.

Three seconds later, Ginny stumbled out of the smoke, holding a sleeve to her face. "Damn, I think I used too much obsidian powder there. Maybe a bit more dampening."

A cough sounded in the silence.

Ginny whirled to see several people staring at her. "Your Grace, I thought you were at the docks."

The dragon queen seemed to compose herself with effort. "An unknown dragon appearing had me wishing to see to my children."

"Oh." There was a small silence. Then Ginny smiled sheepishly. "I don't suppose we could all just forget that ever happened?"


End file.
